Marxism is first and foremost a critical method, since it is the product of a class which can only emancipate itself through the ruthless criticism of all existing conditions. A revolutionary organisation that fails to criticise its errors, to learn from its mistakes, inevitably exposes itself to the conservative and reactionary influences of the dominant ideology. And this is all the more true at a time of revolution, which by its very nature has to break new ground, enter an unknown landscape with little more than a compass of general principles to find its way. As we shall see, one of the consequences of the Bolshevik party identifying itself with the Soviet state was that it increasingly lost this capacity to criticise itself and the general course of the revolution. But as long as it remained a proletarian party it continuously generated minorities who did continue to carry out this task.

When one talks about
the revolutionary opposition to the degeneration of the revolution in Russia, or of the
Communist International, it is generally assumed that one is referring to the
Left Opposition led by Trotsky and other Bolshevik leaders. The wholly
inadequate criticisms of the degeneration made after much delay by those who
had played an active part in that degeneration are taken to be the be all and
end all of communist opposition inside Russia or the
International. The much deeper and more consistent critique elaborated by the
‘left wing communists' long before
the Left Opposition came into existence in 1923 is either ignored or dismissed
as the ravings of sectarian lunatics cut off from the ‘real world'. This
distortion of the past is simply an expression of the long ascendancy of the
counter-revolution since the years of the revolutionary struggle ended in the
1920s. It is always in the interests of the capitalist counter-revolution to
hide or distort the genuinely revolutionary history of the working class and
its communist minorities, because only in this way can the bourgeoisie hope to
obscure the historic nature of the
proletariat as the class that is destined to lead mankind into the reign of
freedom.